June 27, 2011

"Life is much shorter than I imagined it to be."
--Abraham Cahan

Life is short. Think about it...how long is the average life span in America? I'll tell you 78.7 years. Live life to the fullest! Don't blink, or you'll miss it!

-Ness

June 26, 2011

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
--Robert Frost

Life goes on. Sometimes it feels like you've hit rock bottom and there is no way out, there's no way it can get better: this is the end. It's not true. Life goes on. Mistakes happen..unforgivable mistakes happen. It's part of life. You'll disappoint someone in your life...but guess what? Life goes on, and they will forgive you. Just give it time. =0)

-Ness

June 25, 2011

"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
--Robert Louis Stevenson
Make the most of the situation you are in. Just like playing poker, if you can survive one hand, you'll be dealt another next. Push through the hard times with all your might. The good cards WILL come, but make the most of what you have for now.
-Ness

June 24, 2011

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't."
--Eleanor Roosevelt

A popular quote to say the least, right? Do what you feel is right. Don't be afraid to be yourself or do what you feel because of the outsiders looking in. The outsiders are not in your shoes.

-Ness

June 23, 2011

"They say that God is everywhere and yet we always think of him as somewhat of a recluse."--Emily Dickinson

God is everywhere. Some point during your busy day...just stop. Stop. Go outside. Take a deep breath. Slowly lift your head and look around you. God is everywhere. In plants, in people, in animals... Look for Him.

-Ness

June 22, 2011

"In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back."
--Charlie Brown

Charlie Brown is a great character. I followed the comics for awhile and fell in love with them. My mom is a huge "Lucy" fan from Peanuts. Remember, there is no easy way to live life. You just have to live it. There are no shortcuts!

-Ness

June 21, 2011

"He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for."
--Moroccan Proverb

Fight for something you believe in. Live for some thing or someone. Each day is a blessing to live for the things that make you want to get up in the morning!

-Ness

June 20, 2011

"Without the dark, we'd never see the stars."--Stephanie Meyers, Twilight

Sometimes when you are feeling down and feel like there is no way out, remember that it's only in the darkness we can see the stars. The stars, although not bright, are still a promising light. Stars guide. Let them guide you back home or through the darkness.

-Ness

June 19, 2011

"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."
--Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
WHAT A GREAT QUOTE! It's easy to lie- to pretend to be someone you're not. After awhile, when you pretend to be someone else-- when you lie about things you've done or people you know...the lies start to build up. They become a part of you. After awhile, you will be confused as to which face that you are wearing. The mask that isn't you becomes you. Remember to always be yourself! Lies and secrets always find a way of catching up with you.

-Ness

June 18, 2011

"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell."
--Oscar Wilde

The devil is a scary figure. It's scary to think that I could be my own devil--but it's true. We are each our own devil at times. We sabotage ourselves, and we are our own worst critics. Broken things can always be mended--When it feels like you're in hell--get out. Take control!

This is a great quote. I love it!

-Ness

June 17, 2011

"You see things; you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?"
--George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

Let's give credit where credit is due. This quote is constantly misattributed to Robert F. Kennedy when in fact he was quoting Shaw. That is my daily quote side note for the day. Credit for this quote goes to a great man, George Bernard Shaw, and was re-quoted by another great man, Robert F. Kennedy! Dream. Dream as big as you want!

-Ness

June 16, 2011

"I want to have no regrets at all. If my friends want to go out 7 nights a week, I'm going to do it. If I see something wrong, I'm going to fix it. If something looks textured, I'm going to feel it, and If I think I'm in love, I'm going to say it."
-Johnny Lechner, a 13th yr senior
Now, I do NOT recommend staying in college for thirteen years, but this man is kind of funny, right? I mean, he's the ideal candidate for the slogan, "Living for the moment!" There is a time to grow up, we can't be Peter Pans forever! Just don't forget to live for the moment some times. =0)
-Ness

June 15, 2011

"Fitness is a journey, not a destination!"
--Dr. Cooper

Why can't getting INTO shape be as easy as getting OUT of shape? =0( Don't worry blogger friends, I am with you on this. I try a diet- I give up. I start the C25K and complete it (YAY ME!) and stop running. *sighs* Remind yourselves that it's not a destination....It's a lifestyle! Make the lifestyle change today!

-Ness

June 14, 2011

"...I am incapable of telling you not to feel. Feel, feel, I say - feel for all you're worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live..."

--Henry James

Don't shut yourself down. Don't push people away. FEEL. Don't be afraid of your feelings or other people's feelings. If you put up a wall to keep your feelings in and other's out remember- boundaries don't keep others out, they fence you in!

-Ness

June 13, 2011

"There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors."
--Tennessee Williams You are all that you will ever be...you can't just MORPH into a different body. You will never be Justin Bieber, Megan Fox, or Brad Pitt. You are yourself; embrace it. The humor of the quote is also very sad--some people can't accept who they are and commit suicide. SUICIDE is an easy out, and a very selfish act. If you look in a mirror one day and don't like what you see--Change. It's never too late to change...always remember that.
-Ness

June 12, 2011

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
--Mark Twain

Always think before you speak. I constantly have to remind myself of this simple idea. Too quickly do our mouths open and speak before our brain has time to come up with an answer. Apply this to times when you are arguing with a friend, acquaintance, or partner. Sometimes you can sound like a huge idiot because you didn't think before you spoke, or you can hurt someone's feelings because of a quick lip! I know I have done this numerous times. =0S

-Ness

June 11, 2011

"Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically--to those who hardly think about us in return."
--T.H. White, The Once and Future King

It's okay to give your heart to someone you feel is special. If he/she doesn't feel the same way in return it's okay. God gave us hearts that break to remind us that we are alive. Take the risk to give your heart to someone. A broken heart is better than a lonely one!

-Ness

June 10, 2011

"That proves you are unusual," returned the Scarecrow. "and I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folks are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed."
--L. Frank Baum, Wonderful Land of Oz

I live in Kansas, so naturally I had to quote The Wizard of Oz! It is true what the Scarecrow says though. Common folk go unnoticed. Don't be afraid to stand out!! Normal isn't all it's chalked up to be!
-Ness

June 9, 2011

I apologize, today is a passage from a book I read: "You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.

After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theater the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm.

That’s what I believe.
The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. It’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” It just happens.
These memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I’m going to be when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic if I am ever going to conjure magic again. I need to know and remember, and I want to tell you."
--Robert R. McCammon, Boy's Life

I don't believe this excerpt from the book needs any explanation from me as to why I chose it for today. I feel like we, as adults, have lost the magic. We yell at our kids for doing the "dumbest" things we have ever seen, when really we just don't see the magic that they see.

-Ness

June 8, 2011

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it."
--J.M. Barrie

Everyone's life changes. I have never met a person that has once told me, "My life turned out exactly as planned." People you love leave, your heart gets broken, paths come to forks in the road. Looking back, you will be more pleased with the story you wrote, than the story you planned on writing. If having your life go exactly as planned is a measure of a successful life, then most people are failures, if not all.

Live life to the fullest. No regrets.

-Ness